Straight On Till Morning
by May Eve
Summary: A series of drabbles. Every story has a beginning. This is ours.
1. First

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Jim sat in the vacant Captain's chair under the eyes of a despairing crew and slipped naturally into the costume of captaincy that had always felt like breathing to him, even as the weight of duty and authority settled upon his shoulders. This was hardly his first position of leadership – not even the first in a time of disaster. But this was the first with the sense of destiny to it.

He almost wanted to grin, but he knew this crew – _his crew_ – needed to see him sober and controlled if they were going to accomplish anything. And they had so much to accomplish.

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	2. Second

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Jim collapsed into the tiny desk chair and sighed out a heavy breath. Now that things had calmed down somewhat, he'd had time to sort out a set of quarters for himself so he could catch up on sleep. Ironically, they'd belonged to Ivan Georges, the man who'd parachuted down with him and Sulu.

He absently picked up a figurine from the desk that he recognized. The Madonna, an old Earth religious figure still worshiped in some areas. Apparently, Georges had been religious. Perhaps that was why he seemed not to fear death even in the very last moment.

Jim shook his head at himself. Wishful thinking. He knew the reality of it, even if he didn't like to acknowledge it. Georges had been a green cadet, just old enough to be sent out with the rest, still young enough to think he couldn't die. Jim couldn't even recall a time when he had believed such a foolish bit of idealism. He'd always been intimately aware of his mortality; he'd taught himself to read on reports of just how close to death he came at birth.

He rolled the figure between his fingers and cracked his neck, feeling all of a sudden much too old for all of this shit. He sighed once more and set down the Madonna before crossing to the bed and dropping gracelessly on top of the sheets. When he woke, he'd get Bones to fix him up and return to his duties. In the meantime, he hoped for a dreamless sleep without memory or premonition or the echoes of an excited boy too young to be meeting any god.

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	3. Third

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Jim glanced quickly about him as he entered the bridge, taking in the state of things after his nap. Everyone looked exhausted. His bridge crew had now been working steadily for over forty-eight hours, sorting out the mess the _Enterprise_ was in as best they could. Jim had been right there with them up until he caught himself blankly agreeing when Scotty called and mentioned some slightly more than questionable modifications that _might_ help the ship.

Jim knew command probably better than anyone on the ship but Pike and he knew when it was time to step down and admit defeat before you started doing more damage than help. It appeared he would have to teach his bridge crew that lesson. Sighing internally, he walked over to his chair and stared about him, waiting for all eyes to focus on him. When he had about half of their attention, many simply too far gone to be noticing anything outside their workstation, he sighed aloud and put his fingers to his lips.

A high, piercing whistle broke through the quiet bustling and he finally had everyone's complete attention, "Alright, who's been here over forty hours?" There was rather a lot of stupefied blinking, which both amused and exasperated him. "Come on, hands up if you've been going passed forty hours or can't remember the last time you slept." Much quicker response to the latter than the former, he noticed.

"All of you with hands up, notify your replacements in another shift and get out of here. Sleep, eat, I don't really care so long as you get some rest. No one reports back for at least eight hours." A few stubborn individuals remained facing him, mutinous, but most were simply too exhausted to protest. Spock and Uhura were distinctly absent from the second group. Jim raised an eyebrow at those not jumping to obey and all but those two reluctantly moved to comply.

Jim sighed as he recognized the defiance in his Communications Officer and the half-Vulcan. Gesturing for them to follow him out to the lift, Jim didn't wait for them to be difficult, turning on his heel and leaving them no option but to follow.

When the doors had hissed shut behind the three of them, Jim stopped the lift before it could move and made sure to meet both sets of eyes focused on him. He decided to start with Uhura.

"Lieutenant, is there a problem with your hearing?" For probably the first time, he made sure to maintain an absolutely bland and professional tone speaking to the xenolinguist. She blinked and opened her mouth in surprise, whether at the tone or the question he couldn't be certain, "Excuse me? Sir." She tacked on the respect at the end after a pause.

"I said, is there a problem with your hearing, Lieutenant, or did you not catch a direct order?" Jim stood with his back straight and held her eyes firmly as she flushed angrily. She drew a sharp breath and her eyes glittered. He decided to cut her off before she could really get going and things got messy.

"Uhura." He hadn't meant for it to come out so gently exasperated, but when her mouth stayed shut and her eyes widened he decided to run with it. "You have been working for at least forty-eight hours now. I understand that you want to help, but you've done more than enough. You need to stop and rest before mistakes start being made." Her eyes still a little wide, she nodded slowly, dazedly, and he wordlessly let her out of the lift to make her way to a bed.

Spock had remained silent and frozen throughout the exchange and now watched Jim impassively. When Jim recognized the non-expression, he had to resist the urge to bang his head, repeatedly, against the wall.

"Spock." It was minute, but Jim was completely focused on his companion and didn't miss the tensing in his shoulders. He sighed, "Spock," and it wasn't quite the same fondly exasperated tone as he'd used with Uhura, but it was just as gentle. Spock's eyebrow rose at the unfamiliar tone but Jim carried on, "I know you're going to tell me that Vulcans need less rest than humans and there is no logical reason for you to stop," and there went the other eyebrow, "and that might even be true on some level. I get that there are plenty of good reasons for you to not want to stop working so I'm not going to order you," the eyebrows came down in a furrow for only a moment before smoothing out.

"But Spock, even you have admitted to being emotionally compromised. At the least, you should take a few hours to meditate." Jim stopped a moment to observe as the half-Vulcan's eyes narrowed with the mention of his compromise before widening at Jim's apparent knowledge of Vulcan practice. They really were his most human feature.

"I'm not applying the same rules to you as the rest of the crew. You can return to your duties as soon as you consider yourself fit, or as near as possible. If that takes three hours, or five, or ten, so be it. But I would really appreciate it if you could do this, if not for your own sake, then for the rest of the crew's. We need to be setting an example for them. If you refuse to take rest time, more of them will try to avoid it or be ashamed of needing it."

Spock considered his points for several moments before offering the same slow nod Uhura had and Jim couldn't help a quiet exhale in relief, "I will take four hours…Captain, to meditate." The hesitation was distinct but at least he'd acknowledged Jim's authority to an extent. Jim nodded politely and opened the doors for Spock, leaving him to take the lift to his quarters while Jim returned to the bridge, though Jim was positive he could feel those human eyes following him on his way out.

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	4. Fourth

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Jim's first action upon settling in the Captain's chair was to comm. the medbay and request a status update. A very familiar voice replaced that of the nurse he'd been speaking with in seconds, "Jim, you'd better have a damn good reason to not be sitting on one of the beds down here." Jim almost sighed but managed to refrain when he caught a few pairs of curious eyes glancing his way.

"Hello to you, too, Bones. You wanna give me that status update I requested?" The man grumbled but offered up the information willingly enough, "We're crowded, but most everyone's stable. It hasn't been easy but even Pike is holding out. You do _not_ want to know what sort of shit I had to pull out of his brain." Jim winced a little at the thought but couldn't help grinning – Bones always came through for him.

"Thanks, Bones." There was the distinct sound of an impatiently tapping foot and Jim's grin widened but he held up his end of the unspoken agreement to trade updates, "I'm not down there at this moment because I just woke up from a nice four hour nap, so be proud. I'm just going to check in up here on the bridge then I'll come down so you can quit harping. Alright?"

"Yeah yeah, kid. I'm holding you to that." There was a simple click and Jim shook his head ruefully. It was nice to know some things never changed, one of those things being McCoy's perpetual grumpiness.

Jim stood and stretched before making the rounds of the bridge, taking time to talk to everybody and congratulate them on a job well done. He discovered that the ship was doing both better and worse than he had expected: without the warp core, they were moving at a snail's pace and it would likely take at least a week to make it back to Earth, most of the third level deck had been torn clean off the ship, and almost a third of all personnel were in sickbay with moderate to major injuries. However, they had gotten lucky in that the life support systems and food supplies had remained miraculously untouched. The only necessities he had to worry about rationing out were the severely depleted medical stores.

He supposed he was a little biased, but Jim was unfailingly grateful that he would not have to limit anyone's food to rations. The last thing he needed was a tired _and_ hungry crew. The thought was cut off by the crackle of an incoming comm. at his chair and Jim strode over quickly, accessing the audio feed. What was left of the bridge crew either stared or laughed with their Captain when the distinct sound of a tapping foot could be heard echoing into the room.

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	5. Fifth

_A/N: That's right , folks! Two updates in one day. For those of you waiting for the Insubordination update, don't worry, this isn't actually taking time from that since these have been written for months and I just, well, forgot they were there. ;;Enjoy._

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"Damn it, Jim!"

Jim had once considered getting a T-shirt made with that legend, but reconsidered upon Bones' discovery of the order form and proceeding fit. Sighing just a little, he summoned up a big grin for the doctor and cut into his rant about irresponsible infants with no sense of self-preservation or their put-upon doctors, "Oh, come on, Bones! This is hardly the worst you've ever seen me." He smiled winningly, consciously injecting a bit of extra charm, but Bones only glared at him, wordlessly yanking off his undershirt to properly examine his back.

Jim hissed a little as the material scraped over his bruised and abraded back and Bones actually growled at the sight.

"It's not that bad, Bones, don't be so melodramatic." The look he got for a response was entirely unimpressed with his nonchalance and he sighed again, "Bones, just fix me up already so I can get back to work. Believe it or not, getting this girl back home isn't going to be easy."

Still unmoved, damn. Bones ignored his subsequent pouting to finish his exam and dig out a dermal regenerator for his back and swollen neck. Apparently, multiple strangulation attempts in a span of less than twenty-four hours was _bad_. Once the grumbling doctor was satisfied with the state of his back and the lessened swelling ringing his neck, he pulled together several other bits and pieces of medical equipment, beginning to heal the internal damage to his throat, his three broken ribs, and his sprained ankle. Jim, naturally, sat and sulked, his occasional arguments or attempts at levity ignored until an hour later when Bones deemed him fit to return to duty on the condition that he come back for a check-up sometime in the next two days and got enough rest.

He made it very clear, hypo in hand, that "enough rest" meant at least eight hours. Too ecstatic with freedom to argue, Jim just nodded, grabbed his discarded shirt and made a break for the turbolift before Bones could change his mind. He didn't even bother pulling on the shirt until the doors had already slid closed. Jim grinned at his reflection in the metal and took several moments to carefully stretch out the ache still lining his bones before directing the lift down to engineering.

He had little doubt the place would be a mess, but he really needed to get an update from Scotty.

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End file.
